Kite-Powered Sailboat Aims to Conquer World Sailing Speed Record
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Jun 17, 2025
Meet the Kite-Powered Boat Made to Break a World Speed Record
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This kite-powered sailboat is out to smash the world's sailing speed record
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We talked to SP-80, the company behind the boat, to find out what it's like to sail this thing and design a vessel for such high speeds
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The record that the SP-80 team is aiming at has three rules set by the World Sailing Speed Record Council
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The record holder must reach the highest average speed over 500 meters, have at least one person on board, and use only the wind as their source of energy
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With those rules in mind, the SP80 team came up with this design that some might say looks more like a spaceship than a sailboat
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There are always two pilots on the boat. Benoit is managing the kite, I'm steering the boat
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And we need to have a really good coordination. You're sitting in these cockpits, protected from the wind, from the water
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We don't hear that much the environment. It's changing a lot from conventional sailing when you're feeling the gust and the wind
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them The team opted to make their boat a trimar has three has three hulls Two hulls on the side add stability while the gaps between them reduce the amount of hull contact with the surface of the water
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Less hull touching the water means less area for the water to exert drag on the boat, which
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would slow it down. Hydrofoil sailboats have taken this lack of drag to the extreme, but they aren't always
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as stable. There is still a foil element to the SP-80 boat though
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A superventilating foil helps keep the boat in the water and prevent it from being carried away by its giant kite-like sail, which I'll get to in a second
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Superventilating isn't like hyperventilating, it just means that the bubbles of evaporated water that form on a normal hydrofoil and make it unstable and hard to accelerate beyond 100 kilometers an hour are prevented because of the special shape of this hydrofoil
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Something really similar to the sound barrier for airplanes. And the foil is the main drag element on the boat
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Some still have limits a little bit higher than 55 knots. And so we try to push it even further
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as long as we keep the boat stable and have enough power to push it further Now let talk about that sail or should I say kite When it that far from the boat it becomes a little unclear
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It's still built like a conventional kite. It's also inspired a lot from paragliding
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The fabrics are coming from paragliders, skit surfing, also sails. It's a mix of all these worlds
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SP80 says the kite was chosen for its speed, safety, and control
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And changing the kite's size can help the team adjust to various wind conditions
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Speaking of conditions... Speed sailing is really a particular thing in sailing
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We are doing a straight line and going as fast as possible. It's a bit of a drag race
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We need a wind coming from the shore, so we can sail really close to the shore and have really flat water
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We are sailing in south of France, I think one of the best in Europe for speed sailing
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The current world sailing speed record holder is Paul Larson who piloted the Vesta SailRocket 2 to a top speed of 65 knots which is more than 75 miles an hour for all you landlubbers out there
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Unbelievable! The last speed record was in Namibia, in Africa. I think one of the best places on Earth
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But we think it's possible to break the record in Legat. SP80 says it's aiming to break the world record and its own goal of 80 knots by the end of this year
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There is nothing to earn at the end, except that you're proud to have achieved it
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After that, the team will be working on finding new applications for the technologies they developed
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in industries like hydroelectric power, maritime shipping, and of course, boat racing
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You are looking at your screen, at the data and everything, and sometimes you look outside
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and you see the water passing super fast. Okay, yeah, we'll focus on the data
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To see more fast-flying sailboats, check out our coverage of last year's SailGP races in San Francisco
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and subscribe to CNET so you don't miss the latest and greatest tech news
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As always, thanks so much for watching. I'm your host, Jesse Oral. See you next time with the fam
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